Fascism History

Best-selling author, former White House speechwriter, and Atlantic columnist and media commentator David Frum explains why President Trump has undermined our most important institutions in ways even the most critical media has missed, in this thoughtful and hard-hitting book that is a warning for democracy and America's future. Quietly, steadily, Trump and his administration are damaging the tenets and accepted practices of American democracy, perhaps irrevocably.

The chant of Azadi! - Urdu for "freedom!" - is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically it has also become the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism. What lies between these two calls for freedom? A chasm or a bridge? In this series of penetrating essays on politics and literature, Arundhati Roy examines this question and challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism.

Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in the 20th century.

A princess of White Russian descent, Marie Vassiltchikov was 23 years old when she was trapped in Berlin by the outbreak of World War II. In these secret diaries, she chronicles the glamorous rise and shattering fall of the Nazi Party, as seen from the vantage point of her desk at the Foreign Ministry. She also describes how she and her friends became involved in a desperate conspiracy to murder Hitler.

The words we use shape the world we live in - so it matters when we get them wrong. This series, from the creators of the chart-topping Origin Story podcast, sheds much-needed light on the true meanings and surprising stories behind some of our most used and abused political terms. Where did these terms originate? Who coined them - and why? How have their meanings evolved over time? And what do they mean to people today? These small guides to (very) big ideas are an antidote to confusion and conspiracy, bringing clarity back to the conversations we have about politics.

Many Americans would be surprised to learn that England had an active fascist party in the years before World War II. Yet, by 1936, the British Union of Fascists of Sir Oswald Mosley had become a growing threat. Many British admired Mussolini for his accomplishment of making the trains run on time and some of them agreed with the direction of Germany under Hitler. Many also, unfortunately, were convinced that his Jewish policy was not unreasonable. On October 4th of that year, thousands of fascists and members of the Communist Party of Great Britain met in what was a virtual one-day civil ...

I just learned something about myself – and it isn’t very good. In fact, it is very bad.I learned that the opinions of Boomers don’t matter any more. We are obsolete in this new age of new knowledge. Anything we think is unimportant and false. This means my time has passed and I can teach nothing to the new generation. Our new leaders say they have a better grasp on history and the Boomers, well, we are all part of the past that is being destroyed like statues, businesses and capitalism. We have arrived at a transformative moment. Everything from the past is over and the future has ...

In the greatest intelligence operation in the history of the world, Donald Trump was made president of the United States with the assistance of a foreign power. For the first time, The Plot to Destroy Democracy reveals the dramatic story of how blackmail, espionage, assassination, and psychological warfare were used by Vladimir Putin and his spy agencies to steal the 2016 US election. It will show how Russia and its fifth column allies tried to flip the cornerstones of democracy in order to reengineer the world political order that kept most of the world free since since 1945.

Idiots can't be identified through voting records, they can be found only by looking for people who hide behind stereotypes, embrace partisanship, and believe that bumper-sticker slogans are a substitute for common sense. If you know someone who fits the bill, then Arguing with Idiots will help you silence them once and for all with the ultimate weapon: the truth.

In Behold, America, Sarah Churchwell offers a surprising account of 20th-century Americans' fierce battle for the nation's soul. It follows the stories of two phrases - the "American dream" and "America First" - that once embodied opposing visions for America. Starting as a Republican motto before becoming a hugely influential isolationist slogan during World War I, America First was always closely linked with authoritarianism and white supremacy. The American dream, meanwhile, initially represented a broad vision of democratic and economic equality.

In today’s chaotic world, where the multiplication of information sources creates competing narratives, credibility is the key to winning the war of ideas. This is the reason why governments and corporations resort to astroturfing - creation of ostensibly grassroots movements set up to advance political agendas and commercial campaigns. The democratization of information and polarization of politics offer a perfect storm.

In the 20th century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism and communism. These were movements in which a leader or a party claimed to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and rejected reason in favour of myth. European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances. History can familiarise, and it can warn.

In Becoming Hitler, award-winning historian Thomas Weber examines Adolf Hitler's time in Munich between 1918 and 1926, the years when Hitler shed his awkward, feckless persona and transformed himself into a savvy opportunistic political operator who saw himself as Germany's messiah. The story of Hitler's transformation is one of a fateful match between man and city. After opportunistically fluctuating between the ideas of the left and the right, Hitler emerged as an astonishingly flexible leader of Munich's right-wing movement.

The first woman ever to issue the threat of a nuclear weapons strike is not even officially a head of state. Kim Yo Jong is the sister of North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and, as their murderous regime’s chief propagandist, internal administrator, and foreign policymaker, she is the most powerful woman in North Korean history. Cruel but charming, she threatens and insults foreign leaders with sardonic wit, issuing proclamations and denunciations in her own name, a first for any woman in the Korean royal family.

In this short companion to his book From Fascism to Populism in History, world-renowned historian Federico Finchelstein explains why fascists regarded simple and often hateful lies as truth and why so many of their followers believed the falsehoods. Throughout the history of the 20th century, many supporters of fascist ideologies regarded political lies as truth incarnated in their leader. From Hitler to Mussolini, fascist leaders capitalized on lies as the base of their power and popular sovereignty.

Members of the cosmopolitan, cultural aristocracy of Florence at the beginning of the 20th century, the Rosselli family, led by their fierce matriarch, Amelia, were vocal antifascists. As populist right-wing nationalism swept across Europe after World War I and Italy's prime minister, Benito Mussolini, began consolidating his power, Amelia's sons, Carlo and Nello, led the opposition, taking a public stand against Il Duce that few others in their elite class dared risk.

Was World War II really the 'Good War'? In the years since the declaration of peace in 1945, many myths have sprung up around the conflict in the victorious nations. In this audiobook, Peter Hitchens deconstructs the many fables which have become associated with the narrative of the 'Good War'. Whilst not criticising or doubting the need for war against Nazi Germany at some stage, Hitchens does query whether September 1939 was the right moment or the independence of Poland the right issue.

Since the end of World War II, democracy's sweep across the globe seemed inexorable. Yet today, it seems radically imperiled, even in some of the world's most stable democracies. How bad could things get? In How Democracy Ends, David Runciman argues that we are trapped in outdated 20th-century ideas of democratic failure. By fixating on coups and violence, we are focusing on the wrong threats. Our societies are too affluent, too elderly, and too networked to fall apart as they did in the past. We need new ways of thinking the unthinkable....

We live in an age that seems eerily familiar. A time of dictators, populists, organised lying, European wars, grabs for territory, ideological extremism and even antisemitism, a time when things are falling apart and the centre is struggling to hold. It has all happened before, in the 1920s and 1930s. History is sending us a warning, and unless we heed it, history will have its revenge as we repeat the disaster of the 1940s. The world needs to learn the lessons of these decades, and fast.

Uncover the stark realities tearing apart the antiwar movement worldwide: dark money from nefarious regimes run by nefarious dictators has corrupted the peace coalition that was once united in opposition to the Second Iraq War. As Alexander Reid Ross and others have uncovered, pundits and media outlets such as Russia Today have had a disproportionate level of influence on left-wing public opinion. That once-controversial claim has now become mainstream: Nancy Pelosi and Marco Rubio have called for investigations which, however, raise the issue to an inappropriate level and threaten free ...